The steamer Hadley rams the whaleback freighter Thomas Wilson near the entry to the Duluth harbor. The Wilson sinks quickly, and nine crewmembers drown.

The Republican National Convention meets in Minneapolis and renominates Benjamin Harrison to the office of president. Harrison had defeated Grover Cleveland four years before but would lose to him in November. Two women from Wyoming attend the convention as alternates, the first female delegates to a national political convention.

Edward Phelan (variously spelled), recently discharged from Fort Snelling, stakes out a claim in St. Paul near Ryan and Hill Streets. Lake Phalen and Phalen Creek are named for him.

In a horrifying multiple-murder, Robert Doan of Mahtowa clubs to death his wife and three of his four children. He also sets fire to the house, killing the remaining child. Doan had "lost his temper" after being fired from his job as a bulldozer operator at the Duluth Williamson-Johnson Municipal Airport and then getting into an argument with his wife. His first trial closes with a 9-3 deadlock because, according to the defense, Doan had signed a confession under extreme duress and he later denied the murders during the trial.

Major Samuel Woods leads a group of cavalry from Fort Snelling to map the Red River valley and select a site for a new fort. Captain John Pope drew the map. Pope would later lead the Union Army to defeat at Second Manassas in the Civil War, after which he would return to Minnesota to oversee federal forces during the US-Dakota War of 1862.

The last commercially cut logs pass through Stillwater's boom on the St. Croix, marking the end of large-scale logging in the St. Croix valley. The boom was a chain of logs stretching across the river. Logs floated from upstream, each carrying their owner's brand, were sorted and measured so that each logging company got credit for what it had cut.

Rocky Mountain locusts cross into Minnesota and begin destroying crops in the southwestern part of the state. Relief efforts are organized to keep the settlers from starving. The locusts return for the next four years, finally leaving in August 1877.

Captain Frederick Marryat, author of numerous sea tales, most memorably "Mr. Midshipman Easy," visits Fort Snelling while on a trip to investigate American democracy. The next year he publishes Diary in America, which contains several chapters on his Minnesota experiences.

John H. Stevens is born in Brompton Falls, Quebec. A farmer, merchant, editor, and legislator, he built a house on the west bank of St. Anthony Falls in 1849.

Faribault's first passenger train arrives.